The Trouble with Hairy (Legs)

I have a problem with spiders. Every morning and every evening I have to kill a bunch of spider webs on my front porch and on the tiki deck. It does not matter how diligent I am at removing them - they keep coming back. The problem is worse when I leave the porch lights on at night.

I picture a crew of spider construction workers with their little hard hats, the flashing sawhorse lights, the beep-beep-beep as they back their little spider asses to the next area to be filled in, spewing webbing as a cement truck would a load of concrete. Only a third of them are working. The rest are either "supervising" or "taking a break", leaning on little spider shovels and glaring at passing fireflies.

Personally I find spiders creepy. When I was a teen-ager I moved my bedroom to my parent's back basement to avoid sharing a room with my siblings. I had a cot in one corner, poor ventilation and nascent claustrophobia. One night I awoke in the dark. I was thirsty and I reached above me and pulled the string that turned on the bare bulb over my bed. Hanging parallel to the pull string was a single strand of spider webbing. Suspended by the webbing was a big hairy spider - about six inches from my face. After that I didn't find sleeping in the same room with my sister nearly as disturbing.

Yesterday, I was killing another batch of spider webs when the petite red head asked me if I ever killed the actual spiders. "Huh?" I replied sagely.

It had never occurred to me. I just kept killing more and more elaborate constructions. Then I got to thinking. I wondered how many generations of spiders grew up and were evolving through selective breeding to survive my daily attacks. Was I actually breeding a heartier form of super-spider? Would I awake one morning to find myself wrapped in a cocoon of webbing, suspended upside down from the ceiling? With thousands of chittering arachnids fighting over the remains of my neighbor and claiming "dibs" on me?

I believe that a lot of nature is put here as an example of how "The Big Guy" intends things to run. Spiders are indeed creepy. But they also serve a function. Eating bugs and scaring teen-age boys in the dark are two of them. They also give me something to do twice a day. Sort of a break from the routines of living in paradise.

As for selective breeding, I got to wondering if we weren't doing the same thing with our fellow human beings. You know, breeding a stronger, smarter, more virulent form of, say, terrorists - or maybe even ex-spouses? It is damn near Darwinian.

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Airport 2007

I was offered a free plane ride this week. I turned it down. I had two reasons. First, when I traveled extensively with my job, my rule of thumb was (because of parking and airport delays) "If it took six hours or less to drive -- don't fly." Secondly, air travel sounds like a cross between a bad Stephen King story and life in Communist Russia.

You never know what some lunatic has planned for your trip and government regulation gives you no choices or recourse in anything. You are essentially the captive of a bureaucratic nightmare and the target of every psychotic nutjob with a chemistry set.

As an air traveler, if you believe that you are being treated unfairly or inhumanely, you are not permitted to complain or get angry about it. At that point, you have become an "unruly passenger"; subject to detention, fines, imprisonment and loss of that little pocket knife your father gave you for graduation 30 years ago.

If you pleadingly reach out to touch the sleeve of the minor bureaucrat (screener, ticket taker, stewardess, etc.) standing between you and the reasonable world -- that constitutes assault. This is where you get tasared, other passengers tackle and kick you, the airplane is turned around and you make the half-hour news cycle, half-hourly, for the next three days. All because you've already read the June issue of Newsweek and the bitch stewardess wouldn't let you trade with someone else.

None of this takes into consideration the 10-hour delays -- after you've boarded the plane; the lack of air conditioning; the overflowing toilets; the lack of food or beverages; claustrophobia; or the other obnoxious people around you. And the over-riding fear that maybe this will be the flight that the towel-heads get their shit together again.




You cannot conveniently carry anything that makes life convenient. You have to remove your shoes and other articles of clothing. You are subject to indignities for which you cannot complain. Many of your personal items are subject to confiscation. And you wait for hours in lines like cattle.

In the mean time, you and everyone around you, are suspicious of you and everyone around you.

** Last week a man from Iraq was stopped before boarding a plane. He had a stick of gum, a small rock and a piece of wire stuffed into his rectum. He said they were there as a "comfort" to him.

** Yesterday, a couple was arrested in the Honolulu airport for posing as police officers. The couple had a third person in handcuffs and claimed to be escorting a prisoner. They tried to board the plane carrying weapons. Fortunately, their paperwork didn't check out and all three were arrested.

** US Airways passengers reported some suspicious middle eastern types to airline personnel and the airline, apparently agreed with the assessment. The suspicious passengers were detained and questioned. It turned out they were Muslim Imams. Now, the six Imams are suing everyone involved, and US Airways is turning over the names of the passengers who originally complained, for the suit . . . After the repeated interminable terminal announcements to report "anything" suspicious.

** Then there was the man who was not permitted to go to the restroom during a one hour Southwest Airlines flight and had to relieve himself in an air sickness bag.

All in all, I think I am going to change my rule of thumb for air travel. "If I can possibly get there any other way, during my lifetime -- don't fly."

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